


Five Times Ryan Reminded Someone of Matt Damon

by dudski



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-14
Updated: 2009-03-14
Packaged: 2017-11-06 04:53:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dudski/pseuds/dudski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Section two has HUGE spoilers for the ending of The Departed, but the rest is clear unless you're worried about being exposed to a famous line from a movie that came out in 1997.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Five Times Ryan Reminded Someone of Matt Damon

**Author's Note:**

> Section two has HUGE spoilers for the ending of The Departed, but the rest is clear unless you're worried about being exposed to a famous line from a movie that came out in 1997.

**one :: stuck on you**

Michael's birthday party is going awesomely. The whole office is there - he made sure to schedule it during work, since he's a cool boss who totally understands how hard it can be for thirteen people to coordinate their schedules to throw a party for someone they love, and he wanted to save them the trouble. It's a gorgeous day, the first really nice one since spring started, and everyone's out in the parking lot, enjoying the picnic. (Michael was up _all night_ cooking, but Pam ordered a ton of extra food this morning so they wouldn't run out - that Pam, always thinking.) The petting zoo was a bust, but that's his own fault. He should've known Dwight would just show up with a donkey and his creepy cousin Moses or whoever. It's cool, though, Michael remembers the pony incident; he doesn't need to spend another birthday like that.

Jim's mostly handling the activities (good old Jimbo, always looking out), but Michael has a ton of ideas he's just itching to try out, and he finally gets his chance to take over when he accidentally spills a bowl of salsa into Jim's lap. He goes inside to clean himself off, which is just the opportunity Michael's been waiting for all day. The only question is _which_ awesome game he wants to go with first - he can't decide. It doesn't matter, there's no time - Jim could come back outside and take over at any second, so he's just got to move and trust his improvisational instincts to carry him.

"ATTENTION, EVERYONE!" he shouts, climbing up on a table. "Three-legged race! Everyone pick your partner!" Nobody looks all that enthusiastic - that's his staff, so shy about physical contact, like this is a middle school dance instead of a family gathering - so he decides to try another improv trick and raise the stakes. "The winning team gets - drum roll please - the day off tomorrow!" This gets them going - he is _such_ a good motivator. "Okay, Ryan, you're with me--" But Andy is already pulling Ryan away from the table, and when Michael turns around, Darryl has borrowed his chair, so now he can't even get down from the table properly, and by the time he climbs down the dust has settled and the only person left is Dwight. Fabulous.

So once again, it's the worst birthday ever. Stanley and Oscar win the day off. Dwight, as expected, is a total spaz about the whole thing, and Michael ends up falling and scraping his palms. Once he and Ryan are tied together, Andy decides they're just like the movie _Stuck On You_ , with Andy as Greg Kinnear and Ryan as Matt Damon, which is exactly the kind of awesome inside joke Michael and Ryan would have come up with together, and maybe after the party they would have kept calling each other Greg and Matt, because that's the kind of friendship they have.

Ryan looks kind of upset about the whole thing, though, especially when Andy won't untie them, so he's probably wishing he'd been paired with Michael too.

**two :: the departed**

Ryan really never wanted to have this conversation. He was thinking it'd be like telling Kelly - a quick goodbye, or maybe no goodbye at all, and he'd be free, and none of this would be his problem anymore. But no. David Wallace decided that the best way to ensure a smooth transition and avoid any resentment from Michael at having one of his employees promoted over him would be for Ryan to break the news and talk things out.

Ryan's pretty sure David just didn't want to be the one delivering the news. So now he's here, sitting in Michael's office at six on a Friday, with Michael on the verge of tears and one branch visit a month suddenly seeming like an awful lot.

"I just don't see how this could have happened," says Michael, waving his hands around and making these horrible gasping noises. "It's like - Ryan, it's like this is the end of _The Departed_ and I'm Leonardo DiCaprio and you're Matt Damon and you're shooting me in the head, Ryan. You have shot me IN MY HEAD, and it hurts, because I thought we were brothers, and - well, they weren't brothers, but cops are like brothers, aren't they? And we were like cops, out on the front lines of the paper business, and now I've just been shot by one of my own men, and how could you?"

This is the moment where Ryan realizes with awful, awful clarity that this won't be like the Kelly situation. He is going to have to deal with Michael _all the time_. His job performance is going to depend on his ability to keep Michael from going insane. And if he doesn't fix this, Michael is going to be impossible, and Ryan is going to lose his mind just like Jan did.

"Michael," he starts, then pauses, frantically trying to decide what to say next. Unappealing as it sounds, Michael is going to have to think they're still friends, because that's the only way Ryan will ever be able to keep him in line. "Remember, in the movie, how Matt Damon only joined the State Troopers so he could help out Jack Nicholson? Think of it like that."

"So I'm like..." Michael is actually crying now, and Ryan's kind of terrified of what he'll say next. "I'm like your crime boss father figure?"

Oh, no. That is definitely not what Ryan wanted to convey here. He tries to correct Michael, but - nope, too late, Michael's hugging him over the desk, saying "I love you too, man" and crying all over his new suit.

This promotion is going to suck.

**three :: saving private ryan**

Jim knew he should have called in sick today. All morning, it was just sign after sign after sign, and of course he ignored them all - his alarm clock didn't go off, he was so tired he had to force himself through his morning routine, Dunkin' Donuts was somehow _out of coffee_ , and to top it all off, his tire blew out six blocks from the office. Yet for whatever reason, he powers through and makes it to work less than an hour late, only to find the place deserted. There's a note on his desk from Michael - "COME 2 THE WEARHOUSE, VIDEO PRESENTATION." This can't be good.

When he gets downstairs, there's a huge "SAVING SALESMAN RYAN" banner hanging between two sets of shelves. As is usually the case with these warehouse takeovers, Michael is on a makeshift stage under the banner, the office staff are sitting quietly in chairs, and the warehouse staff are standing sullenly in the back, waiting for the intrusion to end. There's no sign of a video presentation, which is good. (Oscar and Kevin will later tell Jim that Michael had intended to play _Saving Private Ryan_ but nearly threw up during the opening scene, so he stopped the movie, saying that even Nazi sympathizers have feelings and he didn't want to upset Toby.) Michael is making a speech, which is bad. Jim has no idea what he's talking about, but the first thing he hears is "since she's left us for the Big Apple, I think the best thing to do is give him Pam's job."

"No," Jim cuts in. "Absolutely not. Michael, she's on a leave of absence, you can't just give her job away."

"Fine," Michael concedes. "What about Creed's job? What does he even do?"

"Michael," says Oscar, "Corporate just won't let you hire him again, trust me."

"Oscar, I know this might be difficult for you to understand, but he was sentenced to community service, which is the American justice system's way of saying it's no biggie. He visits some sick kids, and boom, it's like nothing ever happened."

"That's not true at all, and also, Corporate is never going to allow you to rehire him. Not only is he a convicted criminal, but the shareholders certainly wouldn't respond well to the return of someone who was fired for defrauding them."

"Oscar, shut it. Jim, back me up on this. You, me, and Ryan, the Three Musketeers! Remember?" Michael looks almost painfully earnest. Jim really should have stayed home today.

"Michael, I know he was your friend," Jim starts, trying to end the discussion without setting Michael off, "but he was never a very good salesman, and the only time he was even a little useful was when he was just a temp."

At that, Michael's grin widens. No. Oh, no. "That's it! We bring him back as a temp! Jim, can you call them about that?"

Jim _really_ should have stayed home today.

**four :: the sarah palin video**

"It's unbelievable," says Ryan, who has given up on even pretending to work since Michael and Jim are out on a sales call. What is he even supposed to do at reception, anyway? So: Personal long-distance calls on the company phone and FreeCell it is. "I mean, we don't know anything about her now, we're not going to learn too much about her in the next eight weeks, and her best experience so far is being the governor of Alaska for a year and a half."

"Yeah," agrees Pam, "it's kind of crazy. The day she was chosen, they were so desperate for information on MSNBC I think they were just looking her up on Wikipedia. Jim wanted to go in and edit her page, but I drew the line at messing with the national media."

"Personally, I want to know if she really believes dinosaurs were alive four thousand years ago. I mean, she's going to have the military codes, so..." Pam's laughing at something. "What?"

"Aren't you just quoting the Matt Damon video now?"

"I have to...it's...my cell phone is ringing." Which is ridiculous, because of _course_ she knows it isn't, she'd be able to hear it, but it's fine - she has a nice laugh, even when she's telling him to say hi to Ben Affleck for her.

**five :: good will hunting**

Kelly's watching Anastasia with her roommate, Lisa, when the doorbell rings, which is super creepy, because it's like two in the morning and they're definitely not expecting anyone.

"Who's there?" Kelly shouts through the door. She looks around to see if there's anything she could use as a weapon - she is _not_ ending up like Drew Barrymore in Scream, although Drew Barrymore at least had a BOYFRIEND - but all she has by the front door are shoes and an umbrella. "Just so you know, my boyfriend is asleep on the couch and one scream from me and he will come out here and beat you up!" This, obviously, is a lie, but Kelly has a lot of movies, she's sure she can work out some kind of Home Alone thing where she scares the bad guy away with her TV.

"Kelly, it's me," comes Ryan's voice through the door, exasperated like always, and it's so unexpected that it it takes her brain a little bit to shift away from trying to think of a point where Vlad or Dimitri says something that would scare away a murderer. But then he's telling her to let him in, and it's Ryan and his wonderful impatient voice, so of course she opens the door and hugs him before he can even get inside.

"Ryan ohmygod what are you doing here? It's like two in the morning! What happened to Thailand? When did you get back? Ryan, why didn't you call me? I mean, come on, Ryan, you could have sent a _postcard_."

"I don't know what I'm doing here," he said. "Me and the guys were in Thailand, and I thought I'd be able to get over you, but I couldn't. Finally I just told them...sorry, guys, I've got to go see about a girl."

This is the most romantic thing that has ever happened in Kelly's entire life. What girl _hasn't_ dreamed about having the love of her life show up on her doorstep at two in the morning, quoting Matt Damon? Well, ideally the boy would smell better, but he probably missed her so much he came straight from the airport. Ryan always was romantic like that.

Kelly has totally learned her lesson from all of her history with Ryan, though - she's not sleeping with him for at LEAST 72 hours, and she tells him so, right before she goes up to her room to get sheets and stuff to put on the couch for him. Kelly was so excited she didn't even notice Lisa going upstairs, but when she turns to leave, arms full of bedding, Lisa's standing in her doorway.

"So...Howard's back? What now?"

"He came back from Thailand for me, Lisa, so obviously you were wrong about him." Kelly is so not letting Lisa ruin this for her.

"Kelly, he probably just ran out of money or got deported or something, and now he's got nowhere to go so he's going to mooch off you until he gets back on his feet, just like always." Lisa is always such a bitch about this stuff, like hello, it's not Kelly's fault Lisa has such a big lesbian crush on her. That's what Kelly's always assumed, anyway, given Lisa's short hair and neverending bitching about Kelly's boyfriends. Well, mostly just Ryan, but Kelly figured Lisa wasn't threatened by Darryl because he had a kid.

"Excuse me, Lisa, but I wouldn't expect you to understand true love," Kelly huffs, and pushes past her to go downstairs. Whatever, Lisa's probably never even seen _Good Will Hunting_ , so explaining to her why they're just like Matt Damon and Minnie Driver would be pointless.


End file.
